El Gifto iPhone app might change your buying habits for good

Although I consider myself a thoughtful person who understands and appreciates each of my friends’ unique interests, I cannot escape one unfortunate truth: I am terrible at buying gifts. It’s not that I put the purchase off for too long, it’s that I can never think of anything worth getting for my best buds. The […]

Although I consider myself a thoughtful person who understands and appreciates each of my friends’ unique interests, I cannot escape one unfortunate truth: I am terrible at buying gifts. It’s not that I put the purchase off for too long, it’s that I can never think of anything worth getting for my best buds. The El Gifto app might finally change that.

Rather than simply categorizing a bunch of cool items under category headings, El Gifto attempts to understand exactly who you’re buying for before it suggests a single item. The only real screen on the app is basically a short questionnaire about the person you’re buying for. You’ll identify sex, age range, price range, how they identify (as a jock, artsy, high maintenance, etc.), their interests, the reason for the gift and your relationship to the person.

Once you’ve identified who you’re buying for, the search engine does the dirty work, and returns several results that you might find appealing. But it doesn’t just give you product names or serial numbers. It takes you right to the online store in question that has the item you want to buy. Although you might have to complete your purchase on a laptop or desktop because adding items to online shopping carts via El Gifto can be hit or miss, it’s still great to know exactly where to find the gift you’ve just located.

The search function does a great job of locating cool items at competitive prices, so my only real frustration with the app comes from its inability to complete purchases. If you could somehow have a universal checkout system for El Gifto, like loading an El Gifto account with credit, this would be an unbelievable shopping app. As it is, it’s still quite a find.

If you’re like me, and a bit of a rotten shopper, give El Gifto a try. You might not find something for everyone on your shopping list, but you’ll get a lot closer to success than you would’ve without the app.

Download the free Appolicious iPhone app

Share this

Search for more

Dan Kricke has been playing with electronics and writing about them for years. He loved his Sega Dreamcast and now the PlayStation 3. On the iPhone, he's a fan of sports apps and anything that offers new music.